Al-Ahram Al-Arabi devoted a special file of eight articles to the Azhar, as the biggest religious institution in the Islamic world. The file is a comparison between the status of the Azhar in the past and today. In the past, the Azhar played a great role in many fields, religious and national. Today, however, the status of the Azhar is a reflection of the status of the whole Islamic and Arab nation. Its role is deteriorating and its effect is decreasing both on the level of preaching and renewing the religious discourse. The file also draws the features of this deterioration.